John McCausland

John McCausland (13 September 1836-22 January 1927) was a Brigadier-General of the Confederate States Army who commanded the 36th Virginia Infantry during the American Civil War.

Biography
John McCausland was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1836, the son of an Irish immigrant father, and he was orphaned in 1843 and moved to Point Pleasant, Mason County, Virginia (now West Virginia). He graduated with first honors from the Virginia Military Institute in 1857, and he was commissioned colonel of the 36th Virginia Infantry in the Confederate States Army at the start of the American Civil War in 1861. He fought at the Battle of Fort Donelson in 1862 and, after Albert G. Jenkins' death at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain on 9 May 1864, McCausland took over his forces. He was promoted to Brigadier-General on 18 May and commanded a cavalry brigade during the Valley Campaigns of 1864, razing Chambersburg, Pennsylvania on 30 July after it refused to pay an extortion demand. He later fought at the Siege of Petersburg, the Battle of Five Forks, and in the Appomattox Campaign in 1865, and he was paroled in Charleston, West Virginia on 22 May 1865. After the war, he spent two years in Europe and Mexico before returning to the United States, and he lived as a farmer on 6,000 acres of land in Mason County for 60 years. He died in 1927, the last Confederate general to die.